Two children and a teacher are in a 'grave condition' after their skulls were cracked open in a school bloodbath by an axe-wielding student 'with Nazi sympathies'.

Classmates Alexandra Bortsova and Maya Bazhenova, both 13, are fighting for their lives after they received appalling head injuries during the attack on a village high school in the Buryatia republic of southern Siberia.

Teacher Irina Ramenskaya, 41, is also being treated for an open head wound after being struck by the axe.

In all, five pupils and two teachers suffered grievous injuries when a masked teen with accomplices firebombed a classroom before axing victims fleeing the carnage.

An attempted murder probe has been launched, with the Russian media naming the suspect as computer game fanatic Anton Bichivin, 16, who friends say has 'Nazi sympathies'.

The gutted classroom after a firebomb was thrown into it as part of a horrendous attack

The alleged ringleader, named by Russian media as Anton Bichivin is arrested by police officers

The axe used to hack at pupils as they fled the burning classroom after a Molotov cocktail was hurled into it

Anton Bichivin, right, pictured with an unidentified child in a photograph of him taken when he was younger

Armed police officers block an area around a school in Sosnovy Bor on the outskirts of Ulan-Ude, the regional capital of Buryatia, a region near the Russia-Mongolia border, Russia

His stepfather is a major in the Russian paratroopers.

Alexandra was reported to be in a coma and her relatives made a plea for blood to save her.

A classmate called Liza said: 'We were in a literature lesson.

'Suddenly some boy came in and threw a burning substance against the wall. It caught fire.

'We ran out of the classroom, and the attackers started to chop up one of the girls, Maya Bazhenova.'

Share this article

Another finger was badly crushed and she suffered a shoulder injury when she was struck.

Teacher Irina told journalists: 'I got a blow into my head, but I didn't even feel the impact. There was smoke. I started to take out the children.

'But when I went out by myself, I saw that a this figure just chopping the kids with an axe. I began to bring them back into the classroom, but everything was burning.

'I was already bleeding. That is how it was. In my eyes I saw Anton with an axe.'

Anton Kulikov, 13, was wounded in the neck and spine while his female classmate Konstantsia Yatsunenko, 13, received a blow to her shoulder blade.

Alexandra Bortsova (left and right) is fighting for her life in hospital after having her skull cracked with an axe during the attack

Teacher Irina Ramenskaya was also hit in the head with an axe, but was able to give an account of the attack to journalists

Konstantsia Yatsunenko, 13 (left), was badly wounded during the attack, while Anton Kulikov (right image, on the left) was hit in the spine with the axe

Vladislav Danilov, 12, was also badly wounded in the school outrage.

Another teacher is suffering from severe psychological trauma after the attack.

The teenage ringleader of the attack then smashed windows in the room, stabbed himself in the chest and jumped from a second floor window.

He was detained by armed military police after falling on the snow below.

One pupil, called Kristina, said of the suspect and his friends: 'They did not take drugs. They were into Naziism.'

The boy's stepbrother said: 'He is fond of computer games - GTA, Call of Duty, and Painkiller.

'When something goes not according to his wish he becomes nervous, shouts, freaks out.'

Another witness said she saw a boy 'hit with an axe on the back of his neck.

'A girl was axed in the neck and then another student had one or two fingers severed'.

Irina Zbritskaya, 44, another teacher at the school, is suffering from psychological trauma

Bichivin was said to be a fan of violent video games and had images such as this one on his social media profiles

Another image taken from Bichivin's social media of violent video game The Witcher, which sees the protagonist routinely behead monsters he hunts

She saw teacher Irina Zbritskaya give a wounded pupil her fur coat in the aftermath of the carnage as victims fled outside into the minus 24C cold.

Moments later she collapsed.

It is the second devastating attack on a school in Russia this week.

On Monday two masked students went on a rampage in a school in Perm, seriously wounding a teacher and nine students aged ten and 11 with a knife.

Today's attack was at Sosnovy Bor village near regional capital Ulan Ude in the Republic of Buryatia, a Buddhist region in southern Siberia.

A mother was quoted saying: 'The school was not cordoned off when I took my children away - not even policemen, although the FSB had been informed.

'The wounded girl lay without the supervision of class tutors.

'The school director was walking around - he did not call anywhere, did nothing.

'I called the duty prosecutor and it only moved after my call.

'We comforted the wounded girl when she was lying on the floor.

'None of the school administration was there. Children were with the wounded.'

Five hundred children and staff were evacuated from the school.

Regional chief Alexey Tsydenov cut short an official trip to neighbouring Mongolia and was returning to Buryatia.

Other officials were sent to the school to take charge of the incident.

'A criminal investigation has been opened into a school student on suspicion of … attempting the murder of two or more minors,' said a source in Russia's Investigative Committee, which probes serious crime.

The wrecked classroom in Siberia where children were sat for a Russian literature class

A number of armed police officers stand guard outside the school where the teenagers went on a rampage

A military base is near the school.

A previous picture shows Bichivin outside school wearing a gas mask.

Blood is shown in the snow from the horrific axe attack.

The weapon also was shown by a local TV station lying in the snow.

Law enforcement agencies were today checking whether there was any connection between school attacks this week in Perm and Buryatia.

It was also revealed that another attack was averted in Moscow when a school security guard found a student in connection with a collection of weapons.

The guard ignored a demand from the school director to hush up the incident and called police.

In his arsenal the 16 year old boy had knives, bullets for a hunter's riffle, ballbearings, a rope, a pack of screw-drivers, and a petrol can.

Armed police officers in camouflage stand outside the school after the attack in Siberia

Blood is seen spattered on a wall and in the snow outside the school where up to four attackers went on a rampage

The classroom into which the Molotov cocktail was thrown which caused pupils to flee into the path of the attackers

One pupil said: 'We were sitting in a lesson when suddenly a fire alarm went off.

'One of the boys jokingly ran out, the rest just laughed at it.'

They were told by a teacher to keep studying.

'Then the alarm went off again.

'And then a boy, or maybe several, ran inside a class and threw a Molotov cocktail.

'Curtains and the whole class caught fire immediately, and he started striking everyone he could reach with an axe.

'He cut a finger of one student, cut a cheek of another one right to the bone, a third one had been hit at his back, a teacher was wounded.'

A local government spokesman said later: 'There were three attackers.

'They put on masks and threw a bottle with burning liquid into the Russian language and literature classroom where there was a 7th grade lesson.

'There was a fire and when teacher and pupils ran away from the room, the offenders met them at the entrance (with the axe) and caused the injuries.'

Minister of health in Buryatia, Dabinima Sambuev, said: 'Five were injured - four children and a woman, 44.